COVID-19 Status Update – May 2020

A small summary of what’s going on and where we’re heading

A little run-down and a heartfelt thanks

You probably already know what coronavirus is and the effect it is having on the human race right now. It has been well over a month since n-COVID19 was declared as a global pandemic and most countries in the world were put under strict social distancing rules resulting in our planet almost coming to a standstill. That is, except the brave fighters at the front lines of the pandemic, keeping society in order and making sure that we at home have the most comfortable possible experience. I and everyone here at International Inside thank all essential workers around the world from the bottom of our hearts. It is because of them that society hasn’t collapsed into chaos and that there is hope for the millions of people currently suffering from this ghastly pandemic.

What’s going on around the world

A few important statistics about COVID-19 (as of May 5, 2020)

Over 3.6 million confirmed cases over the world, with a death toll of upwards of 251,000 and 1,185,000 people recovering from corona virus (data from John Hopkins University)

Roughly 108 potential vaccines in various phases of development and testing, according to World Health Organization. Eight of these have been approved for clinical trials.

The highest death toll is currently in the United States, with over 1.1 million cases and 70,000 deaths. Following this is the UK, with a death toll of roughly 29,500, which just crossed Italy a few hours ago.

India

Over in India, the situation seems quite bleak as last Monday, after liquor shops were cleared for opening after 40 days of no business, social distancing norms were violently disregarded as thousands lined up in front of shops. The extent of the crowd could only mean bad things as all it would take for a thousand new cases to pop up in our country would be the presence of one corona infected patient at said liquor store queue. These thousand would then go on to create hundreds more cases before they’re tested and identified as infected. This is a very real possibility due to the fact that coronavirus has an incubation period of 14 days during which a person, while showing no symptoms of the disease will still transmit it to those who come in contact with this person.

It doesn’t help that workers have been migrating in large numbers recently, again violating social distancing laws and potentially carrying coronavirus from one highly infected state/city to a less infected one and helping the spread of the virus.

The total number of cases in India as of May 5 is roughly 47,000 with the number of deaths reaching 1500. 31,000 of these cases are active cases and the rest have been discharged after being cured of their symptoms. The last 24 hours showed the highest number of cases in a single day, and also the highest spike in deaths for a single day, signalling towards darker times for the country due to recent violations of social distancing.

Maharashtra is the hardest hit in terms of numbers, followed by Gujarat with Delhi tagging behind in third place. A state-wise tally of cases is reported below –

State

Total Cases

Total Deaths

Maharashtra

14541

583

Gujarat

5804

319

Delhi

4898

69

Tamil Nadu

3550

31

Rajasthan

2998

77

Madhya Pradesh

2942

165

Uttar Pradesh

2766

50

Andhra Pradesh

1650

33

West Bengal

1259

133

Punjab

1232

23

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